This invention relates to a divided structure of a long plastic component for a vehicle, in which constituent parts making up the long plastic component are combined together into one long piece and mounted on a vehicle body.
Among plastic components for a vehicle are a side sill garnish, a bumper, an air spoiler, and the like, which are long components mounted on the vehicle body. For example, as shown in FIG. 12A, a side sill garnish 51 is a component mounted on a lower edge of a side of a vehicle body 52 between tire housings TH of front and rear wheels. The side sill garnish 51 is mounted in such a manner as to slightly project outward widthwise from the side of the vehicle body 52. The side sill garnish 51 thus serves to determine the overall vehicle width and to protect the side of the vehicle body 52 against contact with foreign objects.
The side sill garnish 51 provided also contributes to enhanced flexibility in designing a decorative scheme of the vehicle and to improved aerodynamic characteristics. In many instances, thus, the side sill garnish 51 is not necessarily shaped into a simple straight line, but is rather modified continuously or locally into a curved and/or protruded shape. For example, a downward protrusion 53 may be provided at a front bottom edge of the vehicle as shown in FIG. 12A. In an assembly line of the vehicle, however, a hanger supporting a bottom edge of the side of the vehicle body 52 would for example interfere with the protrusion 53, thus, restrictions could sometimes be placed on the design flexibility with consideration given to plants and equipment. Therefore, in order to lift such restrictions, there is provided the side sill garnish 51 that is divided into constituent parts, for example as shown in FIG. 12B. Among the constituent parts, a garnish 51a including the protrusion 53 is mounted on the vehicle body 52 at a later stage of the assembly line.
According to a conventional divided structure of the side sill garnish 51, each garnish 51a, 51b is independently mounted on the vehicle body 52. However, this structure entails difficulties in relative position adjustment between the garnishes 51a and 51b due to possible errors in positioning the garnishes 51a and 51b on the vehicle body 52. Accordingly, this structure would disadvantageously create several problems. For example, both garnishes 51a and 51b could be mounted in a position vertically misaligned from each other, or difficulties could be entailed in adjusting a clearance in a joint between both garnishes 51a and 51b (where the garnishes are butt-joined in a longitudinal direction).
Moreover, the side sill garnish 51 is a plastic component, which thus expands and contracts more greatly in the longitudinal direction than any other direction under the influence of heat derived from high atmospheric temperature. Therefore, the clearance in the butt-joined portion between both garnishes 51a and 51b should be set on the basis of the clearance assumedly formed between the garnishes 51a and 51b that have expanded most greatly in the highest temperature conceivable. Since both garnishes 51a and 51b are independently mounted on the vehicle body 52, the garnishes 51a and 51b expand and contract with respect to respective mounted spots on the vehicle body 52. Accordingly, in the conventional structure, the clearance in the butt-joined portion between two garnishes 51a and 51b should disadvantageously have been set at an extremely large value, e.g., on the order of millimeters, with consideration given to the amount of expansion and contraction of the two garnishes 51a and 51b. The larger the clearance, the more liable is the outward appearance to be marred, the aerodynamic characteristics to be affected badly, and the more likely it is to be clogged.
The present invention has been created in order to eliminate the above disadvantages.